Seth Godin

I had been meaning to write a post about a Seth Godin experience that I had recently, but one of his blog posts today gives me a second reason.  Regarding today's post:

Interesting Question: what happens in viral marketing when people identify with the wrong brand? 

Case in point: The Beverly Hills Hotel is a venerable institution that can be identified with bungalows, whereas the Beverly Hills Hilton is just a big brand hotel chain down the street that nickles and dimes you for every little "service".

Moral: we're not all mavens with respect to everything.

Especially me...

I have been enjoying Seth's newsfeed and blog for some time now and his name and work has become a familiar one to me.  I have even mentioned him to others and have certainly emailed links to his posts to old school marketing folks I seem to constantly meet (my favorite is "shortcuts").

Much of what he and Malcolm Gladwell have written has resonated with me.

The recent "Seth Godin" experience that I referred to was this...

The other day, I was thinking about something pretty deeply and my vision fixed on a point ahead of me.  I have a small rack of little reference books on my desk, filled mainly with those O'Reilly quick ref's and a gadget manual or two.

All of a sudden it occurred to me that I was staring at the words "SETH GODIN", running sideways down one of the books.  I thought "What is this doing here?" and suddenly I remembered that "Unleashing The Ideavirus" was one of those Amazon "Better Together" offers back last year when I pre-ordered Gladwell's "Blink".

In that moment I realized that I must have accepted the additional book (probably because I was gunna have to wait several more months for Blink and probably because I had just finished the Tipping Point and wanted more viral marketing exposure).

I recall browsing Seth's Ideavirus book when it arrived and liking a lot of what it had to say.  I must have then placed it in the reference rack with the hope of reading more later and then forgot about it (and him) for several months (it's probably better to keep a book like this in the john, it will get read much faster).

So, here's a case where the author's blogging did not cause me to purchase the book (but I'd love to take a look at his "liars" book - i have too much to read these days and so I don't just order everything I think I want like I did back in the boon days).  But Seth's blog (blogs actually, I think he has at least two) certainly do promote Seth and his ideas.  And now I can't wait to read more of Ideavirus.  It's a wonderfully vicious cycle.

I love finding treasures already in ones own library.

Finally, the pieces fall together.  I need to pay more attention to people's names, especially in this attribution crazed world.  I had a professor in college (Ky Fan) who used to hammer us about that.  We could often state and prove very complex theorems, but couldn't tell you who first wrote them and when.  In spite of my rigorous academic upbringing, I still wonder sometimes how important this really is.  We all stand on the shoulders of giants, but then, so do they.

We live in a world gone "attribution" mad.  There's even a licence for it now.  I wonder what would happen if, as a University instructor, I were to license all my handouts and materials (and even the course content itself) with a Creative Commons "attribution-shareAlike" license and then sued all my students that did not adhear to the licence over the course of our lives.  What would happen if I added the "non-commercial" or "no derived works" options?  Personally I am beginning to think that "intellectual property" is an oxymoron, but this is a subject for another post.

At least now I know who wrote "Unleashing the Ideavirus". 

Thanks Seth!